Primal Instincts (24 page)

But where was the vampire?

“Where are you?” he shouted. He watched the entrance, where the door gaped open. “I know you’re coming for me. Show your face. Show your fangs!”

“That won’t be necessary.”

A woman screamed, but the man standing just inside looked like a perfectly ordinary human. He’d been hoping to see the monster.

“You’re a vampire. He’s a vampire!” he shouted.

“If you say so.” It held out its arms, pretending to show that it was unarmed. “You’ve got me,” the vampire said. “Let them go.”

“Tell them the truth,” he demanded.

The vampire looked at the hostages. “He wants you to know that I’m a vampire. Come outside with me,” the vampire said to him. “We’ll talk to the media
together. I’ll tell them.”

He sneered. “To save the mortals?” The vampire nodded. “You must be a Clan boy.”

“Clan boys don’t lie.”

He grabbed a woman and pushed her toward the vampire. “Feed on her. Drink human blood. Show them what you are and I’ll let them go. I’ll come outside with you.”

“All right.”

The vampire grabbed the whimpering woman’s arm, raised her wrist to his mouth, and bit. She screamed and fainted. The vampire let her drop to the floor. Her blood was on his mouth.

“I’ve done what you wanted. Come with me.”

Clan boys didn’t lie. They were crazy that way. The monster would tell the world. He would go with him.

He had a gun in one hand, but the important weapon was the knife he pulled from its sheath. He came closer. The vampire was very tall and muscular, with huge hands. There was a dangerous stillness about it, but he didn’t fear the monster’s imposing size or attitude.

“The blade is silver,” he told the vampire. “I’ll be holding it at your throat. Understood?”

“Understood.”

The vampire turned to leave. He came up behind the monster and pressed the tip of the blade to the
base of the creature’s spine. Its back was a wide, protective shield. He followed close behind when the vampire stepped outside.

Tobias gave one swift glance to the third-floor balcony across the street before he threw himself to the ground.

The Purist had quick reflexes and was good with the knife. A line of pain ran across Tobias’s back as he went down. It was worth the pain to give the SWAT sniper a clear target.

Two shots sounded even before Tobias hit the ground.

Tobias rolled onto his back as the Purist fell, bullet holes in his forehead and chest. The sniper had taken no chances.

The sniper was Colin Foxe, and he was a Clan boy. He was also a cop, and saving mortals was his job. Tobias was glad the Clan Prime had been on the scene when he sent out a telepathic call with what he had in mind. Foxe and a werewolf cop had answered the call.

The werewolf helped him sneak past the police barrier. Foxe assigned himself the sniper’s role. Tobias lured the Purist outside.

So much for that part of the plan.

Tobias moved behind a row of outdoor tables, into
the shadows by the wall of the bar. Cops rushed up to the body. More rushed into the building to help the hostages. They would find one woman with a bitten wrist, but the EMTs would find only a human bite mark. He’d found that it wasn’t that easy to draw blood without using fangs.

More police across the street tried to hold back the gathered reporters.

Dark Angel Primes moved among the throng of mortals, telepathically planting a story about a madman who’d accused a hostage of being a vampire and forced the hostage outside, where the SWAT team saved the day. One of the real hostages would remember being the one pushed outside and to the ground. He’d become a celebrity. The Corbett twins would make sure no media images of the incident showed Tobias. It was
all
good.

Tobias rubbed his smarting back. Maybe not all good. But at least it was over.

N
ot compatible with human DNA. What the hell does that mean? Really? And I hate being stuck here. I need to talk to—

“You’re thinking far too loudly,” the vampire beside her said.

“Sorry,” Saffie answered, her voice muffled by the pile of bedclothes covering her.

Greg had stripped the other double bed in their motel room and spread the coverings on hers, insisting that she was the one who needed to stay warm. The building’s furnace was as dead as everything else that used electricity in the area. The temperature was dropping by the moment and the howling wind was hard on her nerves. It was a hell of an
unpleasant night. Inside and out.

“I can’t sleep,” she said.

“I noticed.”

Greg was on the bed with her but lying on top of the covers. It wasn’t the most practical way of sharing body heat, but it was chaste and proper. Saffie thought her father would appreciate this Prime’s gentlemanly behavior.

“Aren’t you cold?” she asked.

“Yes.”

She let it go. Inviting him under the blankets might sound like she was coming on to him, as Primes could easily misconstrue any comment or gesture as having a sexual meaning. It had been a few months since she’d been in the company of vampires, but dealing with their weirdness was as automatic for her as breathing.

Saffie turned onto her back, though it took some effort. The cocoon of blankets was heavy. She felt imprisoned even though she was warm and the bed was soft.

“It’s been a long day. Sleep now.”

Greg’s voice was soft, persuasive. His thoughts teased suggestions around the edges of hers.

“Telepathy doesn’t work on me,” she said. She could recognize the flux of mental energy, but she couldn’t use it. Her thoughts could sometimes be read, but telepathy certainly couldn’t be used to give
her orders or alter her memories. “Haven’t you read my file?”

“I forgot that detail,” he answered. “I’m only trying to help. You need to rest.”

She needed to get home. She needed to talk to her dad. But there was no Wi-Fi available, no landline working, no cellular signal. She wished she was a telepath, because she couldn’t bear to ask Greg to interrupt her father again. Greg had contacted him already and told her that Tobias was very busy saving Los Angeles right now and would be in touch later.

She understood.

But she also needed answers.

“What do you think I am?” she blurted out. “What am I?”

There was considerable silence before Greg said. “I think you’re a who, not a what.”

“But my DNA—”

“Is a bunch of twisty squiggles that are almost the same as any other primate’s. It’s not like you don’t already know you’re adopted and that the world is full of weirdness.”

“I’m not human!”

“You’re as human as I am.”

Saffron didn’t fall for the obvious retort that he was a vampire. She didn’t say anything, as she realized she was pulling what Dee called a Needy Greedy, and had been for days. She reminded herself
that the mortal members of the Crew had to be ten times tougher than everybody else.
Don’t bleed on the outside, it attracts sharks
, Dee always told her.

“I’m going to go to sleep now.” But before she did, she added, “I’ve got a bad feeling about what’s going on out there.”

Gregor didn’t think the girl was talking about the weather, and he agreed with her.

It wasn’t the howling of the wind that set his senses on nervous alert. Nor was it the uncomfortably cold room that made him restless.
Something wicked this way comes
, he thought, and that didn’t make any sense. He was the official wicked big bad wolf in this Red Riding Hood’s life.

Bad analogy
, he thought, recalling what had happened to the original Red’s BBW. Still, he had a feeling that the huntsman was on the way.

Once the girl’s heart rate told him she was deeply asleep, Gregor slipped from the bed. He pulled the curtain back from the window and gazed outside. His eyes searched through the storm, but more importantly, he concentrated his other senses on everything around him.

He counted the mortal heartbeats in the building and sensed no threat from their fellow stranded travelers. He stared out into the darkness with eyes
tuned to all available light. He listened to the silence beneath the wind. He hunted for sparks of thought beyond mortal consciousness.

Oh, yeah. There was something out there.

Who? And why?

Dark Angels? No, the heroes were busy. If it wasn’t the good guys, it must be the bad. Reinforcements sent by the Master? Whoever it was, he didn’t fancy the company. The girl had been entrusted to him and he was keeping her to himself.

He went over to shake Saffron awake. Her eyes opened instantly. She allowed herself to be afraid for only a moment.

He nodded in acknowledgment. “Get dressed.”

“I am dressed,” she mumbled, struggling to throw off all the layers of blankets. “I went to bed dressed.”

“We’re leaving.”

She didn’t ask questions but quickly put on her shoes and coat and picked up her bag. There were advantages to raising a child in a military unit.

He waited by the door with the car keys in his hand, admiring her ability to move efficiently in what was near-total darkness for her, not letting her mortality get in the way.

He ushered her outside. The parking lot was full of vehicles, and they were covered in snow. He wasn’t even sure which SUV was the one he’d stolen earlier in the day.

It was the girl who led him forward through the heavy drifts.

Gregor kept Saffron in sight through the swirling snow, but he was surrounded by a growing sense of danger. Vampires were coming.

“They’re here,” Saffron said. They’d reached the middle of the parking lot. She turned back to him. “Even I can feel them.”

“They aren’t friendlies.”

The angry, hungry mental pressure told him that. Tribe Primes, but not anybody he knew.

“What the hell is going on?” he demanded.

“Don’t ask me,” the girl replied.

“I wasn’t told to rescue you. I was told to bring you in.”

They were shouting at each other above the growing roar.

The already fierce wind was picking up, turning the snow into a hurricane. They looked up.

“Who the hell would fly a helicopter in this?” Gregor asked.

“A vampire,” Tobias Strahan’s daughter replied. Nothing seemed to surprise her.

The chopper that came down onto the parking lot was huge, some sort of military transport. The Primes who jumped out carried weapons, the sort that fired silver bullets. One of the Primes grabbed the girl. The others pointed their guns at him.

“No, no,” a voice called out from the entrance of the copter. “Bring him along. I know who he is, and I never pass up the chance to recruit a Tribe boy.”

The Primes gestured for him to move toward the helicopter with their guns.

Saffron looked sharply back at him, her expression full of betrayal and fury. “Tribe?”

He shrugged.

“Are you telling me I’ve been kidnapped
twice
today?”

“So, a vampire walks into a bar . . .”

Tobias smiled as Francesca came up behind him at the patio door in Ben Lancer’s kitchen. He could see a trio of werefolk guards patrolling the grounds out in the darkness. A Prime was on watch by the front door. Everyone else in the house was asleep.

They were alone—a situation more dangerous than his encounter with the Purist.

“At least I walked out of the bar.”

“You saved a lot of mortals.”

“You Clan girls get turned on by heroics, don’t you?”

She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed herself against his back. Heat shot through him, and something much more powerful than lust permeated him as well.

He was . . .
complete
when they were together.

“Ouch,” he said. “I was stabbed in the back, you
know.”

“I felt your pain when the silver slashed you and ran to your side.”

He glanced over his shoulder, eyebrow raised skeptically. “Really?”

“No. My cousin Colin called to say you got a tiny cut.” She pressed her forehead between his shoulder blades. “I did feel a little twinge.”

“I was very brave.”

“It’s your job.”

“Aren’t you going to kiss it and make it all better?”

“Probably.” She stroked her cheek across his shoulders. A cat claiming territory? “Whatcha doing?”

“Trying to reach Saffie.” He held his BlackBerry up. “Not a sip, not a voice mail, nothing for hours. It’s not like her not to keep in touch, especially when—”

“Have you checked the weather lately? You do know there’s a major snowstorm on the East Coast, right? Power outages have to be rough on people without telepathy.”

“Maybe that’s it. But—”

“You’ve got a bad feeling?”

“I do.”

She sighed, and he felt her suddenly sharing his worry. “Have you tried telepathy?”

“Not yet. She’s resistant to it. She’s probably asleep,” he added. “I don’t want to give her nightmares.”

He put the BlackBerry away and turned to face Francesca. She kept her arms around him. He put his hands on her shoulders. They looked into each other’s eyes, and Tobias had no idea how long that went on. They didn’t share thoughts or do anything but be together.

He hadn’t realized how tired he was until Francesca’s closeness gave him back some energy. He’d deliberately come back to his headquarters instead of going to her. Of course she’d taken matters into her own hands. He hadn’t consciously known she was coming to him, hadn’t consciously called her—yet here they were. Together.

“Damn,” he muttered after a while. “We are so screwed.”

“I know,” she said.

“Are you accepting it?”

She was the infamous Flare! She’d never accepted a Prime in her life. Now she had her beautifully manicured claws deep in his soul.

Why me?

You ought to be flattered.

Maybe he was. Then again, if he hadn’t been so forceful about claiming her that first time they
wouldn’t have been together. He couldn’t regret that and ached to do it again.

Together.

What a frightening word that was.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she said. “I’m just—here.”